The dawn of the energy age

Thursday

Feb 9, 2012 at 3:35 PM

I'm sure that I've written things that you didn't agree with and probably thought were downright crazy. Well, strap yourself in, because I'm about to take crazy to a whole new level: Within five years, the number of gas customers for the Middleboro Gas & Electric Department will start to plummet. Within 10 to 15 years, there won't be a single customer remaining for either gas or electric. The year 2012 will be looked at by future historians as the dawn of a new age of man - The Energy Age. This will happen because of widespread adoption of a new power source that will provide heat, cooling and electricity for your house for less than $100 per year. It will produce no waste of any kind: No radiation, no greenhouse gases, not even ash. It will replace oil, gas, and coal power plants as well as solar panels and windmills.

The proof of this will come within one year or two at the most. If it doesn't come, you can all have a good laugh at my expense for being gullible. You won't find it discussed much in mainstream media - yet - and most prominent physicists will tell you it's impossible because you can't overcome the Coulomb Barrier without large amounts of energy. They're wrong. High-energy physicists will be slow to believe that their life's work and multi-million dollar fusion/fission reactors will become irrelevant by a device barely more complicated than an air conditioner.

LENR

This new power source is called one of LENR, LANR or even cold fusion. I'm partial to LENR - Low Energy Nuclear Reaction. Devices using this technology are simple: Powdered nickel mixed with pressurized hydrogen gas, a little heat, and some common substances to accelerate the reaction. The result is heat - a lot of it - that can be used to heat and cool houses, produce steam, and eventually run turbines that produce electricity. The physics behind it is not well understood - NASA scientists prefer the Widom-Larson theory, but you'd have to be a physicist to understand it. There seem to be several companies on the verge of delivering products based on this technology. Andrea Rossi's Leonardo Corp has the E-Cat - the Energy Catalyzer - and Defkalion is marketing their Hyperion reactor. Defkalion is offering to let independent parties study their device. Rossi's E-Cat has been demonstrated multiple times but has not been verified by independent scientists - he claims to be protecting his intellectual property and will let the products speak for themselves. The Rossi E-Cat is based on the work of scientist Sergio Focardi, whose work was based on an accidental discovery by Francesco Piantelli. This accidental discovery probably would have been overlooked if not for the work of Pons and Fleischman - who became laughingstocks over their claims of cold fusion in 1989.

It is without doubt that LENR is real. It is without doubt that NASA scientist Dr. Joseph Zawodny has submitted a patent application for a device that sounds exactly like Rossi's device. What is debatable is how it works and whether or not Rossi and others have a viable product - a question that will be answered soon. I believe they have.

The Death of the G&E

Rossi claims that he will be shipping residential E-Cat units within 12-18 months. He claims they will be a cube about 15 inches on each side with a reactor core the size of a pack of cigarettes and sell for just $500. It will heat your house and supply air conditioning via a heat pump and eventually include turbines for electrical generation. The fuel will come from a small canister that you will change every six months for about $14 - similar to changing a filter in your refrigerator. Once perfected, a small canister of fuel might power your house for decades. Rossi is working with National Instruments on the control systems, claims to be in discussions with Home Depot for distribution, and reportedly has submitted a working prototype to Underwriter's Laboratory to have the devices certified as safe for home use.

If this is all true - and I think it is - the world is going to change dramatically and immediately in almost every conceivable way. From a local perspective, within a very short period of time, there will be no need for our gas and electric utility. Maybe some people will keep the service connected for the rare instance when their units break down, but even that will end if there is any charge for it. Eventually the MG&E will collapse with revenues that are insufficient to support their overhead. Their life may be extended somewhat because power plants will also convert to LENR, which will drop the cost of commercial power generation drastically. In the end the G&E will be dissolved - forced into obsolescence by ultra cheap home power generation.

Global game changer

LENR will prove to be the most disruptive technology since Oook discovered fire. The entire geopolitical and economic foundation of the planet is going to be in upheaval as oil quickly goes from being the lifeblood of the world economy to something that is used in relatively small quantities to make plastics and other synthetic materials.

On September 22 of last year, NASA held an LENR forum that included presentations by several scientists including Dan Bushnell - Chief Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center and Dr. Joseph Zawodny. The summary slide of Zawodny's presentation included these points: